Other than Romans chapter 8 and
Ephesians chapter 1 and John chapter 6, I suppose I've preached
from this passage of Scripture more than any other. And I can
full well remember the first time I heard someone, and I think
it was Henry Mann, preach from this passage of Scripture. I
was overwhelmed with the simplicity and the singularity and the beauty
of this passage. This entire book is inspired.
That means God breathed it. into men of old to pen these
words. No Scripture is given by private
imitation or interpretation, but is understood by comparing
Scripture with Scripture, and spiritual things with spiritual
things. You don't need a concordance, though it's very helpful. But
this book defines itself. You don't need any outside explanation
of it. It is a definitive word from
God Almighty. And it has but one singular subject
approached from a hundred or a thousand or a million different
ways. It was inspired by God, the Holy
Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, the function
of the Holy Spirit is to take this book and reveal Christ to
His people. When the apostles and our Lord
Jesus Christ and John the Baptist began to preach the gospel, They
didn't have the New Testament as we had it, they had the Old
Testament and they preached the Gospel from the Old Testament
beginning with Genesis 1 through Malachi. When the Gospel is preached,
Paul said it is an offense. And he said, the only thing I
would have to do to keep it from being an offense is to give you
something to do in the matter of your salvation, and the offense
of the cross would cease. It is offensive because it takes
man and his ability and his will and his mind and his thoughts
and even his faith out of the picture. Out of the picture. But when the gospel is preached,
there's always a tearing down of carnal hope. and natural faith
of men. It always works that way. Grace
is a very stripping theme and a very stripping word, if you
understand what it means. When Paul was inspired to write
this epistle, and some say he's not the author of it, some say
he is. I just use the word Paul because it's easier to say than
the writer of Hebrews. It's easier to say. It has only
one syllable, and I like singular things. He wrote it to a people who believed,
they were believers, and had cut their teeth on a system of
religion given to them by God, and that system was temporary
and consisted of laws and ceremony, a written word, the priests and
the prophets, and a covenant conditioned upon personal obedience.
That was their religion. It was handed down to them from
Sinai. Now this religion did not exist
until Sinai. And the Jew is not a race, it's
a religion, Judaism. For Abraham's descendants were
all Gentiles, and they became Jews at the foot of Sinai when
God gave the law. And the entire Old Testament,
even before this religion was instituted, was about something
or someone else altogether. Long before the law was handed
down and the ceremony was handed down on Sinai, there were men
offering up burnt sacrifices on altars to God and praying
to God. Abraham even took his son Isaac
to offer him up on Mount Moriah. Noah built an altar after the
flood and did honor unto God. They never kept a Sabbath, they
never had any cigarettes not to smoke, or movies not to go
to, or an internet not to play with, or any of those things,
and yet they were called holy in the righteous, in the eyes
of God. And they were also sinners, even though they had none of
those things to sin with. This book is about Jesus Christ
and the salvation that He would accomplish when He came to this
earth in the Old Testament. And Paul using the very things
of this religion and employing scripture after scripture systematically
showed the Hebrew believer that all that religion had been fulfilled
in Jesus Christ. And his offices and his work
and that covenant under which it operated had been set aside
and was no longer in force because it had done what it had been
intended to do. It was given, the Old Testament,
to picture and testify the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of the living God. And He is, according to the Old
Testament, the glorious and only Savior of the elect. In this
matter of salvation, there is nothing more and nothing else
and no one else but Jesus Christ. That's not hard to understand.
For some, it's hard to swallow. But it's not hard to understand.
If I say salvation is the work and person of Jesus Christ alone,
everybody here understands what I'm saying. Everybody. And I hope everybody likes what
I'm saying when I say that. But not everybody does. This is a stripping message as
I say it. It takes from man all hope, save for Christ alone,
when declaring that in Christ there is all true and vital hope. And in this passage, these three
short verses, God preaches the gospel. And the water is always purest
at the springhead, isn't it? This is God's gospel, and you
will find no purer or uncomplicated message anywhere in the universe
than in these three verses of Scripture. It's just so plain.
So simple, so matter-of-fact. Scripture says, God says, God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past and
to the farthest by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son. God spoke in different ways through
dreams and Moses face-to-face, And such to the fathers by the
prophets. He spoke by the prophets. But
one thing you need to see here is that he spoke. He communicated. And he communicated
with words. What I've come to see and understand
about the gospel is that it is the gospel when
it's preached. Because the word gospel is good
news It's good news. But if it's news in a static
sense where nobody ever hears of it, it can't be good news.
And every time the word gospel or preach or even sometimes bring
is found in the Word of God in the New Testament, it's a word
that means evangelize or to preach, to declare. So we believe in
the preaching of the gospel is that what God has ordained for
the salvation of the elect. God has ordained His Word. In
fact, His Son is called the Word, the Divine Logos. In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God. The same was in the
beginning with God. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory as the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. The Gospel is information reported
from God concerning His Son. Paul said, I was separated unto
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel concerning His Son. But it is the Gospel when it's
preached. In fact, it's not the gospel
unless it's preached, because the gospel means preaching. That's
what it means. So we find God divinely communicating
with his people through words, through language. God spake in
times past unto the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by son. If you see the word, as I said,
the word his is in italics. It can be lifted. It was added
by the translators. But I think it's much better
in the original. It actually reads as spoken to us by son
or in son. In son. So he's not talking about
the son in the sense that he's identified in that manner, but
he's talking about a manner. of relating to His people, a
manner of communicating to His people. What does He have to
say to you? How will He say it? He'll say it by Christ. He'll
say it in Christ. You'll not find something from
God outside of Christ. There'll be no word outside of
Him. No word that doesn't refer to Him. All the words from God
are by Christ or in His Son. It's all there. He's spoken to
us. So we find that at one time,
God spoke by prophets, but now He speaks in sons. So Christ is first declared to
be the prophet of God. The prophet. We know He's prophet,
priest, and king. There are no prophets today.
I know preachers like to call themselves prophets, but there
are no prophets today. Prophets were foretellers. They
spoke to God personally, and He gave them words for people. Preachers don't do that. God
doesn't speak to me personally, except through this book. I don't
have any reason to go outside and say, well, God told me something.
I know people like to talk about all that all the time. God ain't
never told me nothing. You know, preachers like that,
well, I was led by the Spirit. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I know
when a person says, God told me to do something, you better
grab your wallet, because he's going to ask for your money. Pretty
sure God told me how to get your money. But God speaks through
here. And what the preacher does is
simply repeat the report over and over again as he looks from
Genesis to the Revelation. But Jesus Christ is the author
and finisher. Jesus Christ is the author of
this book. Jesus Christ wrote these words
and he was writing about himself. He's the prophet. He has the
Word from God because He is the Word of God. And this is spoken
in contrast. God spoke one way at one time,
but hath in these days spoken in another way altogether. So
it's a contrasting thing. These last days signify the end
of the first covenant and the establishment of the second covenant,
which the book of Hebrews covers. They do not signify the end of
the Old Testament, but the end of the Old Covenant. The Old
Testament is the Word of God. The Old Covenant was the acts
that God gave to his people to reflect and typify the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophets were messengers
of God. And in the Old Testament, they
typified the messenger of the covenant, promised in the last
book of the Old Testament, which is Malachi chapter 3, when the
Lord said, the messenger of the covenant shall suddenly come
into his temple, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, that's
you, the priesthood, the church, and try them like silver and
gold. And this all brings us to one
conclusion here with these words. The voice we are to hear and
heed is the one who speaks from heaven. God the Father said,
this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. You hear Him. and hear him alone. And that
was said in contrast to what Peter had come up with on the
Mount of Transfiguration to build a tabernacle or a tent, a place
of worship, if you will, to Elijah and to Moses and to the Lord. Because those are the ones that
appeared and spake to Jesus of the disease he should accomplish
in Jerusalem. And so Peter was all hopped up.
Man, I've seen Moses. He's come across time, across
the time-space continuum. I've seen Elijah. Been dead hundreds
of years. I've seen Elijah. They were talking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's raise us up a tabernacle
of these three guys. And all of a sudden the cloud
came and rolled over that mountain and it got where you couldn't
see across the fireplace. God spoke from heaven and said,
this is my beloved son. Don't hear Moses. Don't hear
Elijah, because they all testified of him. If you're going to read
Moses, know that he's speaking of Christ. If you're going to
read Elijah, know that he's speaking of Christ. This is my beloved
son. You hear him. You hear him. God draws this down to one thing
and one person. This inaugurating of the new
covenant. is the re-institution of God's people to a single language. In Genesis, the Lord confounded
the language of men because they endeavored to build a tower to
reach heaven by their own power and merit. That's what was going
on in Babylon, or when it was so named, Babel. When Nimrod
and his cohorts went together to build the tower of Babel,
God confused the language. They were trying to do what was
impossible to do in the flesh. You can't get to heaven on your
own. You can't get to heaven by your own power. You can't
get to glory. You can't get to God by who you
are and what you are and what you do. So God confused the language. The Lord took away their singular
language and confused their efforts. Now in the end of time, he has
brought his people back to speak the same language. One language. A singular language. The spiritual
language. The language of God. In Zephaniah
chapter 3 and verse 9, he promises, I will turn my people to a pure
language. Singular, undiluted, unadulterated. Not many things, just one thing.
I'm going to turn to a pure language. Why? Because we're dumb. We're
not smart. T.T. Shields, a Sovereign Grace
teacher at a university in Canada said, we are all simpletons. And it's just by the grace of
God that he shut the doors to the insane asylum before we got
in. And that's how it is. This light
gives understanding to the simple. To the simple. Simple people
need simple solutions. Not many things. One thing. And the solution to your sin
and my sin is Jesus Christ. Just one. This brings us to the
second meaning of this text. Christ, the Son of God, is not
only the messenger of the New Covenant, He is the message of
the New Covenant. The message of it. He is the
Word of God. He is the Word of life. He has the words of eternal life. Everything done in the church
is to flow from this singular message. Music, means, and method
must all fall into place as subheadings to this great subject. The message
of God is Jesus Christ. And I've been told time and time
again by preachers and others that there's more to do. You've
got to preach more than that. No, you don't. You can't. You
vary from this. You stray from this. You miss
the message that God, in these last days, He's spoken to us
in son. That's the language that's used. The message of God is Jesus
Christ. The doctrine of the apostles
was Christ and Him crucified. The song and heart of the believer
is Jesus Christ. The message of the gospel preacher
is Christ. The church is in the minority
in these things in human terms, but she will prevail because
she speaks the right language. And to everybody else, it's a
foreign language. It's a foreign language. God
said to those who would cast His bans from them in Psalm 2,
He said, I will have them in derision. And the word derision
is, I'll speak to them in a foreign language. And there's nothing
more frustrating than for someone to speak to you and you can't
understand what they're saying. But that's the truth about the
gospel. You know it to be the case when
you've told people about the gospel, when you've told them
the truth, they look at you like you're crazy. What are you saying? That can't be so. It's because
you're speaking in a language they cannot understand. But it's
the language of God, it's the language of the church, and nothing
else but the gospel will do, and nothing else but the gospel
is permitted. Paul said, if any other creature,
whether it be from heaven or earth or below, come to you and
preach any other gospel than that which I preach, let him
be accursed, anathema maranath, accursed when the Lord comes. In Galatians chapter 6 and verse
14 he said God forbids that I should glory Save in the cross or the
crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified
under me And I'm crucified over God forbid it And that's the
strongest Term in the Greek language in the negative that that God
forbid that means no not never no never no never let it be Jesus Christ is that messenger,
that message from God. He is the singular manifest language
of the new covenant and is the complete fulfillment of all prophecies,
types, and shadows, and pictures found in the writing composed
under the old covenant. In this passage, the message
is opened up and is declared in a manner that is definitive
of what it is to declare the gospel. Since this is the language of
God, Since this is the message that God employs for the revelation
of Himself, since this is how God has spoken unto us in Son,
then this is the measure, isn't it? This is the gauge. I remember when I first started
preaching, I'd just get books all over about preaching. I thought
maybe they'd teach me how to preach, teach me how to do it
better, and I'd get all about preaching. But I got one, it
was worthwhile. It's called Preaching and Preaching
by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And he said, the message, the
method, the music, the means is Jesus Christ. And that sets
everything in order. That tells everybody where they
are, tells everybody what they need, tells everybody who God
is, and tells everybody what they are. The things declared
are so precise and unchallengeable in this text that it would be
impossible for anyone to find difficulty with them other than
the fact they don't believe. Believers understand this and
the glory of it. But what is the language of God
concerning His Son? How does God the Father preach
the Gospel? That's what I want to know, because
this is God speaking in it. He has spoken in His Son. He
has spoken in His Son. What is it? What is a divine
systematic theology inspired by God himself? And it is a systematic
theology. If you read the epistles, they
start out glorifying Christ and then they tell you how man has
fallen and how Christ has redeemed them. Almost all of them start
out that way. First thing. There's six things
here. First thing is Jesus Christ is
the sole proprietor and possessor of the universe and all that
is therein. You and I belong to Him. We belong to Him. Hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things. Heir of all things. The devil
belongs to it. The snakes and the bugs and the
flies and the gnats. And the sand, and the trees,
and the ocean, and the rivers, they belong to Him. Everything
belongs to Him. He owns it, lock, stock, and
barrel. God has appointed Him heir of
all things. It is easy for us to fathom this when we think
of our Lord and His deity. For God, all things belong to
God by divine right. He made them. They're His. He
made them, there He is. But this language speaks not
of Christ's divinity, but rather of His humanity. His Son. God's Son. As a man, He was given all of
this by His Father. That's what John said in John
3.35. God loved His Son. The Father
loved the Son and hath put all things in His hands. Well, Scott Rich used to say
God's put all His eggs in one basket, and He has. Everything's
in Jesus Christ. There's nothing outside of Christ.
And the glorious moments when we believe the gospel and those
blessed moments when we see Him in the gospel, we know this to
be true and we're so thankful for that fact. We see the world
and all that is in a vision of Jesus Christ. Our view is permeated
with Him and everything we look at becomes beautiful in its time
even though while it's going on it may seem horrible to us
and painful to us when we see it in Christ as it really is. And that's only through the preaching
of the gospel. Everything is beautiful in God's time. Everything. This also reveals
that Christ and His people are inseparable. the appointed heir
of all things, that He, His work, and His people are one. They're
called a mystical body, Christ being the head, they being the
church, the internal organs, if you will, and the appendages
that make up the church. The riches of His glory and all
that entails concerning this world, the universe, and the
world to come is Christ's inheritance and is likewise the inheritance
of His people. We are heirs of God, it says
in Romans chapter 8, heirs of God. That don't mean we're God's
heirs. That don't mean we inherit God.
It means we're God's heirs. We're God's heirs. And joint
heirs with Jesus Christ. Now, we're God's heirs and He's
put all things in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And whatever
the Lord has, we have. We must be so because we're joint
heirs. Not co-heirs. I don't mean He gets have, we
get have. We get everything He's got. He can't have what He has
unless we get what He has. And we can't get what He has
unless He has what He has. That's just that simple. We're
joint heirs with Christ. That's good news. And to give
you a whole different perspective on things, this gospel, because
of the affirmation that the believer has all things because all things
have been given to the Son in whom God is well pleased. That
means He's well pleased with you. Is the pleasure of God on
Christ? The pleasure of God's on you. The gospel is not preachable. Christ is not proclaimed as the
possessor of all things. I know men like to talk about
in religion about him being able to do some things but not all
things. Or that he suddenly is given
the right of sovereignty over some men and some things. That
he's a gentleman and would dare never overrule your will. That's the kind of language stupid
religious men use. And it's stupid. It's stupid. And they don't really believe
it themselves because they believe God puts people in hell and they
certainly ain't going there willingly. They bet he overcomes their will
to put them in hell, don't you? It says he ties them up, binds
them up, and throws them into fire. Are they willing to go? No. Well, he overcomes their
will to put them in hell, but won't overcome their will to
save their soul. What kind of God is that? Secondly, Christ is the Creator.
He's the creator. That's what it says. Whom he hath appointed all things,
a bearer of all things, by whom he also made the worlds. He made
the worlds. And notice it is in plural. Spurgeon used to say, well, he's
worked out his plan of redemption on the earth. I don't know what
goes on the rest of the planets in the world. He said, I'm not
interested in those because he worked out his plan of redemption
on this little grain of sand in the middle of the solar system
that we call the Milky Way. But he created it all. The words by whom make the statement
all the more blessed. This does not only suggest that
the triune Godhead was involved together in creation, but that
there was an exclusivity in the action of Christ. 1 John chapter 1 says nothing was
made that wasn't made by Him. He created all things. And He
inherited all things because He created all things. The Father
created all things by and through the Son. Colossians 1.16 declares
that all things were for Christ's personal use. All things were
made by Him and for Him. This universe, this planet, this
world is the stage upon which Christ exhibits why it was created
in the first place. Why was the world created? Why did He set this universe
in the order that He set it? To show His glory in the salvation
of sinners, by the substitutionary sacrifice, of Jesus Christ. That's why this thing exists.
By Him, all things consist. All things are glued together.
They're held together. Take away Christ, the world is gone. The
universe is gone. He created all things. The Gospel
is not preached before Christ is not created. Thirdly, Christ
is God in His effulgent, brilliant glory, who being the brightness of His
glory. I've read so many commentaries,
and I've read some guys who are really good with the English
language, really good with adjectives. This is just one of those things
that's just a little beyond the pale of our intelligence to grasp. Christ is the outshining of God's
glory. This declaration is assurance
that Christ was not merely an agent of creation, but the very
power and deity that accomplished creation. The language here speaks
of shining out. Psalm 50 says, Out of Zion our
God has shined. Psalm 50 and verse 2. Out of
the church? Well. That's where he shines
from. What is the church? The church
is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the head of the
Lord Jesus. He's the head of the church. In 1 Corinthians
it says, if people be blind, it's because the God of this
world is blind, they can't see the glory of God manifest in
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6. Christ
is divinity in glorious display. That's what he is. We beheld
His glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. And you know, glory is so singular,
so absolutely singular, it cannot be shared. Glory cannot be shared. Glory belongs to whoever did
whatever was necessary to do to get the glory for it. We plant
these forsythias out here. They look like scraggly pieces
of twisted nothing now with a little knots on the limb. Boy, come
April. Boom! They'll explode with color. That's why I planted them. I
don't give a hoot about them right now. I don't even look
at them. Don't pay attention to them. Walk by them every day
and don't even look at them. Why? Because they're nothing
to them. But man, when they bloom, it's like the house is on fire.
What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful plant. That's the glory
of that plant. That flower is the glory of that
plant. Why? Because only a forsythia
does that, that way. I like roses, but roses ain't
forsythia. Roses are beautiful, but the
glory of the rose is the rose. It's singular. It belongs to
who does it. Who does it? All glory belongs
to Jesus Christ. All glory belongs to God. All
of it because He did it all. He created it. He sustains it.
He will consummate it. And here it says, He is the outshining
of God's glory displayed. This means that if God is to
be known, one must know Jesus Christ, and that in a particular
way. You must know Him in His glory,
because that's who He is. He's the outshining of God's
glory. Paul describes Him as the image
of the invisible God, and there's no way to even explain that.
How can something invisible have an image? But he's the image of the invisible
God. The language is indescribable
because the one described is incomprehensible. Can't thou
by searching find out God? And yet if you would know God,
you must know Him in this capacity in the successful, accomplishing
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way you're going
to know Him. Because that's His glory. There's also an assertion that
what glorifies God. People talk about a lot of things,
glorifying God, but this is what glorifies God, Christ. You know how you glorify? By
speaking of His glory, that's all. We speak of His glory. Paul said, we speak of his glory.
We preach the gospel and that's about his glory. Any gospel that
diminishes the work and person of the Lord Jesus Christ and
puts that work and person as to a consummate off on men, they're
not preaching the gospel, they're lying to people because they're
getting the glory instead of God. He's the outshining. Whatever
is God's glory is found in Christ the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, Christ is the sovereign
God. upholding all things by the Word
of His power or by His powerful Word. He upholds everything,
everything by His Word. Verse 3, notice the word between
the phrases, the express image of His person and upholding all
things. by the Word of His power. And,
that little word is important. This is a divine distinctive,
actually. From beginning to end, all that
is cleared is vitally connected. The Gospel is one thing. All
of its aspects are interdependent upon one another. Who Christ
is cannot be separated from what He is doing and what He has done.
People have told me many times, tell me about Christ, but I don't
want to hear doctrine. You can't, I can't. Sorry, I
can't tell you anything about Him. He's the doctrine of God. How
did I find out about Him? Through the preaching of doctrine.
Through the preaching of teaching. These are things that are united
with this word, and. In all that comes before and
all that follows, Christ is it. Whether God speaking in His Son,
whether He is the outshining of His glory, and He upholds
all things by the word of His power. And He is absolutely sovereign
in all things. It all comes before. All that
comes before has to do with Him. All that comes after. And what
does it say here? He reigns over all. Holds all things. Controls all
things. Keeps everything going. people,
places, and things that he has created and inherited. They're
all his. The gospel is not preachable.
Christ is not absolutely sovereign. We don't worship a namby-pamby
nobody who can't do nothing unless you let him. That's just silly.
I might as well worship myself. Might as well go look in the
mirror and start building an altar by reflection. We worship a God
who controls all things. When I talked to Phyllis about
the loss of those children and the loss of the family home and
all that stuff, I was glad to hear her say, well, you know,
everything's the way it's supposed to be. And that's how it is. Everything's the way it's supposed
to be. Why? Because the one who controls it is Jesus Christ. The one who controls it is Jesus
Christ. The gospel is not preached. And I say this without apology,
the gospel is not preached where Christ is not absolutely sovereign.
It's simply not preached. Fifthly, God declares that His
Son, and this is absolutely essential to the declaration of the gospel,
actually purged our sin. Notice it says, when He had purged
our sin. Does anyone think that this is
a cooperative effort between man and God? The word himself
is included, when he by himself purged our sins. I looked up to that word, purged.
Interesting word. It plays out in a lot of ways,
but this word has to do with accomplishing the putting away of something.
accomplishing the putting away of something. He purged our sin. You see, Christ is the sole owner
of the redemption of His people. He did it all and did it alone.
I remember a movie one time with a couple of stars who were pretty
radical people, I can't remember their names, called Dead Man
Walking. Susan Sarandon played a nun She
was talking to Sean Penn. He was a man on death row. She
was talking to him about redemption. And she says, you know you have
to take part in this. You have to work it out yourself.
And I thought, what a sad religion. That you have to work out your
own redemption when you can't do anything. Christ did it alone. When He
had by Himself purged. There's your purgatory, right
there. Purged our sins. All the sins of all the elect
were purged by the blood, death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
word when, when He had purged our sins is part of a phrase. It assures us that this is a
point of fact. Purging actually took place.
When? On the cross. When He had purged
our sins. It also is a phrase that suggests
that it was just a matter of the course of being who He is.
The one by whom God speaks, the one who is the heir of all things,
the one who upholds all things by His power, the one who is
the outshining of God's glory, when He purged our sins. Not
if, not something in the future that can be done. Not something
that you have to do with. When He had purged our sins. Purging actually took place on
Calvary's tree. In Hebrews 9, verse 12, it says,
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood
He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. Then in verse 26 it says, For
then must he have often, if he was like all other priests, he
must have often suffered since the foundation of the world,
but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The gospel is not preached
where the actual purging of our sins is not preached. Not the possibility Not the offering
of it. Not the providing of it. The
doing of it. This is what makes the gospel,
the gospel. The sixth and final point of the language of God
is the declaration that Christ gloriously finished the work
that He came to do. When He had purged our sins,
He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Why did
He sit down? Nothing left to do. It's over.
It's finished. You mean He's resting? Yeah.
He's that old life. Who shall rouse Him up? Who shall
rouse Him up? Why is He resting? Nothing left
to do. What do you mean there's nothing left to do? Salvation
is complete. All the elect are redeemed. All
that's left in time is for the Holy Spirit to make them aware
of it through the preaching of the gospel. They don't learn
they can be saved when the gospel is preached. They learned it
2,000 years ago they were saved. When the Holy Spirit calls you,
He calls you to let you know that you have been saved. Not
that you can't be, but you have been. How do I know? Well, the
One who saved me has rested, and He is resting in His eternal
rest. He's not got anything to do.
In the matter of salvation, it's complete and finished. The proof of this fact is he
sits in wondrous, excellent repose at the right hand of the majesty
on high, the right hand of God. Why is he there? He earned it! He merited it! He sits there
in merited glory for finishing the work, for perfecting the
saints by his perfect offering unto God. It is finished and
everything is settled in heaven. We sit here and stand here and
we tell our friends about this and we don't try to give them
a lesson in theology. We just tell them what Christ
did for us 2,000 years ago on Calvary tree. Some of them will
receive it, some of them won't. Some believed, some didn't. But
it's a done deal. He was obedient even to the death
of the cross, wherefore God has highly exalted Him and given
Him a name above every name that is the name of Jesus. Every knee
should bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory
of the Father. He earned it. For to this end He died, rose,
and resurrected that He might be the Lord of the living and
the dead. That was the purpose of it. And over in Hebrews chapter
10, it says this in verse 12, that this man, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. From henceforth
waiting or expecting till his enemies are all brought under
his feet, the last enemy to destroy is death. For by one offering
he hath perfected, hath perfected, same word he used when he said
it is finished, same exact word. Well, by one offering He hath
perfected forever. How long? Forever. You mean 2,000 years
ago, Ethel, you were perfected forever? That's right. You didn't
know about it, did you? Had no clue. Until somebody like
old Henry Mann stood up and told you. Wow, wasn't that a thing? Them that are sanctified, those
who are set apart, how are they set apart? Look back at verse
10. By the witch will we are sanctified. By God's will. God's will I'm reading from Hebrews 10 Wherefore the Holy Ghost also
is a witness to us for after he said before speaking of Jeremiah
31 this covenant promise This is the covenant that I will make
with him after their day saith the Lord I will put my laws and
that is his word Into their hearts and in their minds will I write
them You ever wonder why you understand
the Scriptures? We know you're a spiritual person
if God has made you so. He's given you an understanding
of the Scriptures. You know why you get it? Because
it's already in you. It's already in your mind. You
just don't know it. You walked around with this knowledge
before you even knew you had it. And then when somebody spoke
it, you said, that's right. I understand that. I remember
one time years ago I told this story, George and Peggy were
here, and Peggy and George had been to every church on the reservation.
For some reason they'd miss Sequoia. I guess we didn't count her,
nobody told them that we existed or whatever. But anyway, one
day they came to Sequoia, and she was sitting right over where
Carol was sitting, her and George sitting there. And I was preaching
on election that day, preaching on election of grace. And I said, you're saved because
God chose you to salvation. And she slapped George on the
leg and said, that's it. How'd she know? How do you know? Why do you agree with this? Why
do you look at this thing and agree with it? Because it's all
in your mind and your heart. God has written it there. Written
it in your mind. You say, well, I don't know it
all. Well, every time you read it, that's it. Do you disbelieve
what you read? Oh, you read it and believe it.
Why? Because God's Spirit and your
Spirit in these words. My words, they are Spirit and
they are life. Perfected the saints. And then
in verse 17, after Christ has perfected them forever, and God
has written His Word in their hearts and their minds, God says,
and their sins, and iniquities will I remember
no more. Our sins are purged. I know we
never forget our sin, and in fact we should, because we rehearse
the gospel all the days of our lives and will so in eternity.
Our song will be, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. that has redeemed us by His blood
out of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people, has made
us kings and priests unto our God. Why do we remember redemption?
Because we remember our sin. But God doesn't. And He will
never accuse you of sin. If anybody accuses you of sin,
rest assured, it ain't God, the Father, the Son, or the Holy
Spirit. It's your stinking conscience which operates under the law,
or it's the devil, or it's your old self. But God doesn't. We know what we are, don't we?
We're embarrassed by what we are, aren't we? God's not embarrassed
by you. Christ puts you in His fold and
walks to the Father and says, I, the children that thou hast
given me, I'm not ashamed to call them brethren. I'm not ashamed. Why? God don't remember their
sins. Christ purged them and put them
away. The gospel is not preached where Christ has not successfully
redeemed his people and has been rewarded with a seat on the right
hand of the majesty on high. What a blessed gospel. What good
news to poor, wretched sinners. Father, bless this understanding.
We'll pray in Christ's name.